


won't find me perching here again

by DrJackstraw



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person, The title is a P!atD lyric, There is some choking, You/Reader is AFAB, and some manhandling, but I've managed to get away with not using any pronouns at all, but it basically fades to black before things get explicit, don't even look at me, so I will be referring to this self-insert/blank slate character as they/them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:02:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26446054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJackstraw/pseuds/DrJackstraw
Summary: When your favorite customer and local bibliophile Prof. Jonathan Crane offers you a ride home, you're prepared to work overtime.
Relationships: Jonathan Crane/Reader, Jonathan Crane/You
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	won't find me perching here again

You heard the dawn break. Well, you heard something, but it sure wasn’t the sun groaning as it rose. It was last night’s date.

He’s been in your bookstore many times before, but he only introduced himself once.

“Jonathan Crane,” he folded in half over the hand you’d offered and kissed it. “Professor of Psychology.” He must’ve been justifying his purchases, yet he’s been buying fiction books in equal amounts, so English Literature was your second guess. Serial killer had been your first. “Are you closing all by yourself tonight?”

You covered up your laugh with an uncharacteristically coquettish move as you raised the hand he send shock waves through with just his lips to your mouth. He always came in just before closing time to make the biggest purchase of the day. It’s not like he hadn’t witnessed you handle the establishment all by yourself before. “I’m a big girl, Professor. I can tie my own shoes, close my own shop and everything.”

“I’m not making your job any easier, am I, child?” He made a show of looking at his wristwatch as if he wasn’t aware of the time. “And it’s late. Let me make up for my poor timing by driving you home.”

You’d tell the other employees you didn’t mind having to deal with him by yourself. You’d tell them you only put up with him because you could always get him to spent even more money than last time. You’d tell them he was your favorite customer because of that. It had nothing to do with him listening to you ramble on and on about your recommendations. Nor did it have anything to do with the decadent cadence of his voice when he read the blurbs at the back of each book.

You told yourself you only accepted his warm kindness because you didn’t feel like waiting for the train in a cold empty station. You told yourself you had to offer him some tea after driving you all the way to your neighborhood. You told yourself it was just common courtesy to give him a good night kiss right on the lips as he was putting his coat back on.

You lied to yourself as he carried you to the bedroom. You lied to yourself until you couldn’t do it anymore, until he tossed you on top of the comforter and made a mess of your covers, but not as much of a mess as he made of you.

Now, satiated and sore, you returned to reality only to have the realization that the man responsible for your ravished state was up and out of bed. Not only that, but he was shuffling around, turning things over, zipping up his slacks.

“Really now?” He sounded more like the professor who kissed your hand and less like the beast who bit into your shoulder.

He was looking for his shirt, the same one you’d fallen asleep in. But you couldn’t return it just yet. You were still asleep, remember?

As the sound of his footsteps faded, you listened for the bathroom, the kitchen and, with a squeeze of your heart, the front door opening and closing. It never came.

And what did come, you never expected: the sound of your whisk. And, later, the sound of your toaster. You tried to make sense of it all, as if you were hearing them being used for the first time from your bedroom. And it was the first time. Nobody has ever prepared breakfast for you before.

You rolled onto your back and let the smell of eggs, toast and his cologne fill your nose. Then you released your heart and let it fill with affection. And, as you stretched, you let yourself be filled with hope. Hope? When was the last time you got this naked and let your soul go for a skinny dip in those tempestuous tides? Hope, huh?

“Good morning,” you leaned against the door frame lazily with a lull of your sleepy head.

“Good morning, Briar Rose,” he set up the table for one. Just one? “I hope you like omelette.”

“Briar Rose?” You questioned his choice of literally references in the same breath as his table set-up. Your heart had to suffer another squeeze as you braced yourself. “I love omelette. Won’t you have some?”

He had been cooking with nothing but a kitchen towel covering his left shoulder. You could see that all the scratches - your markings - were starting to fade. It wasn’t fair. You had his teeth tattooed onto your flesh for all the weeks to come, for all those cold, lonely nights.

“I’m afraid I’m running late as it is.” To start, he had to wipe his hands on the towel before putting it back on the rack. Next, he had to put your hair back behind your ear to reveal your shoulder. His shirt had fallen off of it, or maybe you let it slip. He had marked his territory the night before. You hoped (there’s that word again) that he hadn’t forgotten because you yourself wouldn’t be allowed that luxury. “I’ll need my dress shirt back.” He then pushed himself away as if he hadn’t been that close in the first place.

But he had been closer. Close enough to carve himself a place in your chest cavity. Close enough to leave you walking on lame legs. So close, you were sure he’d drilled himself a place inside you only his cock could fill.

“No.”

“No?”

“You can’t have your shirt back until I change. And I won’t change until I’m done eating.”

He crossed his arms, two wiry things, in front of his chest, a flat surface. But those were the same arms that carried you across your apartment as if you weighted nothing. And that was the chest you dug your nails into, but never gave up any blood.

“I don’t have time for games, child.”

“I don’t play when it comes to food,” you settled in your seat. “That’s why we’ll be sharing.” You pulled out a chair and patted it. “Unless you really did sprinkle poison onto my eggs.”

“Serves me right for trying to be a gentleman.” The professor seemed to have no problem playing along. He sat down and dug in without giving you a lecture about lateness first.

Before you could swallow your first bite, he was choking on his. His fork fell to the floor as his hand started scratching away at the skin of his throat. His eyes were wide and watery and his face was red and fiery. Your own food got trapped in your esophagus as you cried out. “Oh, fuck!”

His throat bobbed and a laugh bubbled to the surface. “I got you good, didn’t I?”

“What?” You were choking and, unlike the little prank he pulled on you, it was not an act.

A glass of water was your salvation. It was the least he could do. Maybe he thought two would make everything right because he filled up a second glass right after.

“I thought you were dying. I thought-”

“You thought I took a bite out of a poisoned omelette I’d prepared especially for you?”

“I get it, okay?” You chugged the contents of the glass before sighing. Relief. “You scared me.”

“Did I?” He didn’t take his seat back, so he was at his full height looking down at you at only half of yours. “Look at me,” he pushed your hair past your shoulder again. He was admiring what he’d marked as his own. Again. “Look at me,” he pressed his thumb into the tender flesh.

Your eyes were two fully dilated pupils drowning in tears and your breath was short and loud.

“There it is,” he had his hand around your shoulder, his thumb burying itself deeper into the bruise. As it slid up, the shirt fell further down. And when his fingers found your throat only to tightened their hold, half of your chest was exposed. “It suits you.”

The tears that had been trapped in your eyes were falling freely. The hand that had been holding the glass was at his wrist. “Wait,” you shattered the silence along with the shards spreading across the floor. “What are you-”

“If I wanted you dead, it would have been with this look on your face,” he heaved as if he were the one being strangled. He spoke as if he was the one forced to struggle. “Oh, what are you doing to me, child?”

“Please-”

“I was supposed to be in my lab last night,” he forced you to your feet and your plate to the floor. “I was supposed to be making a breakthrough,” he threw you on top the table. He never once let go of your throat. “Not all up in your cunt until the ass crack of dawn!”

You couldn’t see clearly through the tears in your eyes or past the sunrise shining in his spectacles, but you knew this couldn’t have been the man that kissed your hand, held the door open and drove you home. This was the beast that nearly broke your bed.

“At least,” his grip loosened on your neck only to tighten in your hair. He pulled until you poured out sweet, sweet sound he got drunk off of last night. “I got to hear you scream.”

“Professor?”

“You’ll scream for me again, won’t you?” And while he was treading his fingers through your tassels instead of pulling and smoothing his hand around your neck instead of squeezing, he wasn’t being any less threatening. Any less alluring.

“No.” And while your spine was shivering and your words were wavering, you still locked your ankles around him

“No?”

“I’m not af-f-”

“Is that why your chin is wobbling in my hand? Is that why your legs are shaking around me?”

“I’m not afraid.”

He said he didn’t have time, but he must’ve been lying. If he had to waste all of last night because you were too wet, he would have to waste this morning as well. You were dripping.

“Then let’s play a game then. You scream, I get my shirt back.”

You would have screamed right then and there, a morning call for all your neighbors to wake up to. But the game would be over all too soon.

“And if I don’t?”

“You will.”


End file.
